ABSTRACT In response to an article by Steve Fleetwood on the critical realist conception of open and closed system, this paper argues that we should differentiate non-closed systems according to their degree of openness or closure, rather than applying a dichotomy between closed and open system. Societies should be conceptualized in terms of partly closed (or partly open) systems, in addition to any fully open systems that might exist in the social world. The paper furthermore argues that demi-regularities represent probability distributions existing in the real world, as distinct from occurring merely in some epistemic domain. Such partial regularities at one level of the stratified reality are necessary for the emergence of new structures at a higher stratum, for example, the social structures of a given society. Finally, implications for social science research of accepting vs. rejecting the existence of probabilities and partly closed systems in the social world are discussed.

中文翻译：

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“半规制”，概率和部分封闭的系统

摘要针对史蒂夫·弗利特伍德（Steve Fleetwood）关于开放式和封闭式系统的批判现实主义概念的文章，本文认为我们应该根据开放式或封闭式系统的不同程度来区分非封闭式系统，而不是在封闭式系统和开放式系统之间采用二分法。除了应该在社会世界中存在的任何完全开放的系统之外，还应该根据部分封闭（或部分开放）的系统来概念化社会。该论文进一步指出，半规整性代表了现实世界中存在的概率分布，与仅在某些认知领域中发生的概率分布不同。对于更高层次的新结构（例如，给定社会的社会结构）的出现，在分层现实的一个层次上具有这种局部规律性是必要的。最后，